It's fascinating to see how Mark's trying to railroad the rest of the Freakangels, and how easy it is now that they're on the run and feeling trapped. Also a little creepy how the direction turns in a conversation on blowing up something important in England between a buncha teenagers with psychic nukes.

@ Diello - I know EVERY week is Ariana Appreciation Week but seriously, the next skip week (NOT THAT I'M ASKING FOR A SKIP WEEK) simply MUST be ALL about Ariana. Warren makes the dope but Ariana DELIVERS it.

Sherlock - I can't help thinking that's a reference to "Two Thousand Holes in Blackburn, Lancashire" (you all better know the song; I'm not THAT old that I'm the only one for whom the song started playing the moment they said it).

Oddly enough, I like Mark here. Yes, he's presenting as a sociopath; but so are KK and Caz. I think he's aware everyone is fucking pissed. Caz's end note to the pages indicates that Mark was tapping into a larger anger there. From this series of panels, I get the sense that Luke would've dragged it there anyway; Mark just got them to view it as reasonable.

(Which might be one of the reasons Luke is such an asshole - he knows no one would follow HIS lead.)

As I recall, there's three hundred people living in Whitechapel prior to in the influx of the new refugees. The Freakangels haven't been truly building infrastructure (which is part of their problem) so much as adapting and fixing up existing infrastructure. Interesting that we also establish that Luke was a virgin before the world "ended."

And before we jump too much on Mark, let's consider the price we're willing to inflict on others for our security. I don't recall British casualties, but American's lost something like three thousand people during 9-11. And we've inflicted tens of thousands of casualties on Iraqies and Afghanies. And as a whole, we're okay with that. Just think about how often the newspeople talk about Allies casualties (and often simply American casualties) and ignore others.

So, with all that in mind, it's not really all that hard to imagine the Freakangels, hunted as they were, deciding to take action to preserve their lives and freedom and to hell with anyone else.

> Plus, it has to be world wide or the whole world would have shown up to rescue London.

Maybe the FAs protected (shielded) Great Britain from whatever-physical-catastrophe-it-was, to some extent, and the other countries (the rest of the planet) had it worse.

Most of the the rest of planet wouldn't be affected (only the coastal areas would be flooded) by a simple change in sea level that barely floods London.

Admitedly that would destroy ports, and existing shipping. What we don't know yet is, what was it that caused industrial society to fall apart: no more central/regional/local government, no more people going to their jobs? If international trade were disrupted, that would be momentous; but perhaps society could survive that (they did survive it 70 years ago).

I certainly don't have a hard time putting myself in their situation. Me vs them, obviously it's going to be me. Add into that the fact that they're all disillusioned rebel teenagers fighting The Man and it is actually a very reasonable situation to have happened. Who hasn't fantasized about remaking the world in our image? Now what if you actually could. And then very angry people were pointing guns at you and threatening to shoot.

As for the atomic bomb debate, in very simple terms it's a very easy, effective solution to a messy problem. But we haven't dropped an atomic bomb since then for very good reasons, just as the FreakAngels go on to try to keep their powers on the downlow and only for helping the people they fucked over. It's an interesting analogy. Especially considering the social psychology that goes into making group decisions – Mark here is doing some very easy social hacking to bring everyone around to his idea, and one can only wonder his motivations for that.

re: KK and Caz agreeing to the psychic bombing, we have to remember how many very sensible people were convinced of the atomic bomb as a rational way to end the war. Should we notice that it's the two engineers being implicated here?

We still don't know how they got their powers, why they have them, why each of them seems to have been given a "century baby"-esque role to play, or why the government is bringing the military into London to hunt them down.

@Mister Hex - That reminds me, are all of the FA's cast the same age? For some reason I thought they were slightly older or younger but not all the same age. Now I have to reconsider that.

Yes, the HIroshima line was creepy but I read it as he wanted to end their situation, or at least get the government to leave them alone. It'll be interesting to see the extent of their destructive powers and what happens in the aftermath. I wonder if they were all born together and grew up in a pack or if they discovered one another over time. With their mind reading abilities I wonder if a mass call was set up and then they decided to group together, after all what will their families think? Hm

Not that this matters but I wonder about Arkady's and Sirkka's hair and how they're able to have purple hair yet everyone has dark hair, or maybe white if they're albinos of a sort?, and continue to keep it up after the world ended. It's not relevant to the plot, but it has me curious hehe.

I'm doing well, save I have to work on Halloween tonight but I didn't have any plans anyways. My best friend caught the H1N1 and I don't think any of my other friends are doing much for Halloween. So, it's just work tonight.

So...i've been a forum lurker......and finally got some time to reading FreakAngels....I did it all in one sitting. This story is AMAZING. I love every single inch of it.

Admittedly I read chapter 74 1st...so I met Mark right away. Very cool to start at the beginning knowing that this kind looking young man was the idea guy for punching a hole in....the earth? who knows...can't wait to find out.

"Not that this matters but I wonder about Arkady's and Sirkka's hair and how they're able to have purple hair yet everyone has dark hair"

I was totally thinking about this as well. At first I was thinking it might just be a sex-linked gene (girls get purple, boys get black), but not all the girls have purple. So not so straightforward as all that, it's possible I'm missing a really obvious way for this gene to be passed on but I'm a little too tired and drunk to think of all of them. I wonder if our fearless leaders have thought of the biology of it or whether it was just done for the pretty colour scheme.

My impression has been that the FreakAngel package matured as the 'Angels went through puberty.

There was the flashback scene to Kait as a child using her power to (attempt to) revive the bird the local cat had gotten a hold of that implies they've had these abilities from a very young age - so I don't think puberty had much to do with it.

I guess it also proves that Kait isn't that fast a learner since her "Jack the Ripper" victim fared about as well as the bird did, but then again, I'd guess it's also not as simple as learning to ride a bike. Or swim. Conner.